As a transparent, avascular organ, the cornea has certain unique morphological and physiological features. The nutrition for the stroma and epithelium is derived largely from the aqueous humor and is actively supplied by the endothelium. The oxygen for the endothelial cells comes mainly from the atmosphere and must pass through the epithelium and stroma. Physical alterations that adversely affect the permeability in any of these structures will limit the availability of essential metabolites for the other structures. Both the epithelium and endothelium rest upon specialized basement membranes that become morphologically and biochemically altered in certain ocular pathologies such as buphthalmous. The broad objective of this project is to correlate the ultrastructural and biochemical alterations of the ocular basement membranes that are associated with the onset and development of hereditary buphthalmos. The animal model that will be used is the AJ-BU/JAX rabbit, from Jackson Laboratories, Bar Harbor, Maine.